Τρίτη, 7 Νοεμβρίου 2017

I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th. The situation is critical in the extreme. In fact it is now absolutely clear that to delay the uprising would be fatal.

With all my might I urge comrades to realise that everything now hangs by a thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not to be solved by conferences or congresses (even congresses of Soviets), but exclusively by peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed people.

The bourgeois onslaught of the Kornilovites and the removal of Verkhovsky show that we must not wait. We must at all costs, this very evening, this very night, arrest the government, having first disarmed the officer cadets (defeating them, if they resist), and so on.

We must not wait! We may lose everything!

The value of the immediate seizure of power will be the defence of the people (not of the congress, but of the people, the army and the peasants in the first place) from the Kornilovite government, which has driven out Verkhovsky and has hatched a second Kornilov plot.

Who must take power?

That is not important at present. Let the Revolutionary Military Committee do it, or "some other institution" which will declare that it will relinquish power only to the true representatives of the interests of the people, the interests of the army (the immediate proposal of peace), the interests of the peasants (the land to be taken immediately and private property abolished), the interests of the starving.

All districts, all regiments, all forces must be mobilised at once and must immediately send their delegations to the Revolutionary Military Committee and to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks with the insistent demand that under no circumstances should power be left in the hands of Kerensky and Co. until the 25th of October. The matter must be decided without fail this very evening, or this very night.

History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating when they could be victorious today (and they certainly will be victorious today), while they risk losing much tomorrow, in fact, they risk losing everything.

If we seize power today, we seize it not in opposition to the Soviets but on their behalf.

The seizure of power is the business of the uprising; its political purpose will become clear after the seizure.

It would be a disaster, or a sheer formality, to await the wavering vote of October 25. The people have the right and are in duty bound to decide such questions not by a vote, but by force; in critical moments of revolution, the people have the right and are in duty bound to give directions to their representatives, even their best representatives, and not to wait for them.

This is proved by the history of all revolutions; and it would be an infinite crime on the part of the revolutionaries were they to let the chance slip, knowing that the salvation of the revolution,the offer of peace, the salvation of Petrograd, salvation from famine, the transfer of the land to the peasants depend upon them.

The government is tottering. It must be given the death blow at all costs.

To delay action is fatal.

Map of St. Petersbrug (then Petrograd) in 1917

The Petrograd Soviet Assembly meeting in 1917

This letter written on 24.10 by V.I.Lenin to the Central Committee members was the final call for the uprising. Few hours later, at 01.25am on 25th of October 1917 (7.11 according to Gregorian calendar) Red Guards, sailors and soldiers strormed and conquered the Central Post Office building of St. Petersburg....

..."Today we spin the old globe our way"...

"They Attempted to Check the Revolution". Drawing bby V.Deni, 1935

And from that banner, from every fold

Lenin, alive as ever, cries:

"Workers, prepare for the last assult!

Slaves, unbend your knees and spines!

Proletarian army, rise in force!

Long live the Revolution with speedy victory,

the greatest and justest of all wars

ever fought in history!"

Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Lenin", 1924

One century after, the Great October Socialist Revolution still remains the bright example,

the guide to the struggle of Man for social emancipation and liberation.

Πέμπτη, 30 Μαρτίου 2017

Just before dawn, a Sunday 65 years ago, the post-civilwar Greek state executes the Communist Nikos Beloyannis and his comrades. May they sacrificed their own lifes but as the great French poet Paul Eluard wrote "Beloyannis is dead. He didn't sacrifice anything from our honour and hope for a bright tomorrow".

Few days after the execution the following short letter was sent to his mother, Vasiliki, by the political prisoners of "Inzentin" prisons.

Beloved mother. We the 500 political prisoners of the medieval prisons of "Inzentin" on Creta, with endless love join our grief with yours for the death of our beloved friend Nikos. You lost your son, we lost our brother. Country lost the earnest patriot. People the hero. Humanity the great man.

Disarmament, freedom, democracy, peace, progress, lost their hero, their militant and protector. On earth, your children are many millions. These children hold in their hearts Niko's memory. These swear in his name. Honour and glory to our hero brother. Cursed be the murderers,organizers of wars. No more blood. Peace and democracy in Greece and the whole world.

A chain we are, which the earth wearsAnd the wind blows like seed,We count the days and months and yearsWe know not time nor speed.Our numbers grow by day and nightWe swell beneath your groundAnd upward press until our mightWill burst our earthly bound.Then skull to skull and bone to boneWe 'll mount the judgment throneAnd bring to all the fearful news:Lo! We, the Dead, Accuse!

The following is one of two poems written on 8.3.1944 by an unknown female Jew prisoner of Czech nationality, on her way to crematorium in Auschwitz II - Birkenau. The note with the poems handed by a Sonderkommando prisoner and then smuggled out of the camp to Prague.

Noon, 27.1.1945. Units of the 322nd Rifle Division, part of the 60th Army, of Soviet Red Army reaches the main gate of Auschwitz I concentration camp. There they found 7000 inmates in unbearable condition and 600 dead bodies. They were all left behind as 9 days earlier (18.1.1945) the SS ordered the evacuation to the west of the aprx. 60000 prisoners of Auschwitz Complex camps. One of the greatest insult in the history of Man was over...

For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity,

where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children,

mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe.

Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940 - 1945

Εις Μνήμειν. / In Memory.

ps. All photos are from the Auschwitz I & Auschwitz II - Birkenau Memorial site.

It was these days, 70 years ago, when in the village Tsiouka (today known as Foteino -Φωτεινό, Τρικάλων-) of Antichasia region in central Greece, the various scattered guerrillas groups, which were active the last months all over the country, would be unified under a central administration, the General Partisan Command.

It was exactly 70 years ago, on the 28th of October 1946, when the Democratic Army of Greece(Δ.Σ.Ε) (officially renamed on 27.12.1946) was founded...

The following text was written by the great French poet Paul Eluard as a farewell to the fighters of the Democratic Army of Greece. Eluard was member of the French delegation who had visited the strongholds of the Democratic Army in the Greek mountains of northern Greece in June 1949.

Vitsi and Grammos, these two summits of the free world, are not at all lower than i had ever imagined. Instead, there i saw the fighters who adorn them with their unimaginable courage, the fighters who are the fire of the mountains, the fire of whole Greece, a honor for the civilized world who refuses to die under the relentless pressure of a minority of exploiters, arsonists of war. The earth and sun completely belong to them.

My brothers & sisters with the kind and gentle smile, how many times i was moved to tears as i was listening to you singing, watching all of you united by the love for your country, your trust for the future. We hate war, but woe to those who will enforce it to us.

I am leaving and i keep as a treasure into my heart unforgettable memory of your physical and mental health, your enthusiasm, your brotherhood, your faith to victory. The future belongs to you. And just because you are united, your oppressed brothers tomorrow will stand by your side. Freedom and brotherhood are contagious. They can't do anything against a People who is united. And the sea will patiently accept your enslaved!

Long live Greece, united and free!

Long live the brotherhood of the People!

Long live the Peace which being built!

With respect, i salute you!

Paul Eluard, June 1949

Carved in wood. Drawing of Zizi Makri, 1949

To the living memory of all the Democratic Army's officers and fighters, as well as, civilians who got involved and contributed to this titanic but unequal struggle, so the Life would triumph!

On August 25, 2009 the European Court of Human Rights notified
in writing its judgement in the case of Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy.
It judged no excessive use of force was used and it was not established that Italian authorities
had failed to comply with their positive obligations to protect Carlo Giuliani’s life.

In 2005 the English band Chumbawamba dedicated the following

cover of the famous Italian partisan song "Bella Ciao" to the memory of Carlos.

Κυριακή, 24 Απριλίου 2016

Children playing in a derelict site.
Maguinness's court, off Townsend Street,
Dublin, c. 1913

“You cannot conquer Ireland, you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.”

This is what Patrick Pearse testified in front of the British Martial Court during the trial, in the aftermath of the Dublin's Uprising, which had been taken place in the Irish capital few days ago. Pearse, the man who, on Easter Monday 24th of April 1916, read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from outside the General Post Office in Dublin, was proved right. His sacrifice and that of the others who were executed lit the flame of Irish resistance to British rule, which ended with the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and
of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of
nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes
for her freedom. Having organized and trained her manhood through her secret
revolutionary organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her
open military organizations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army,
having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the
right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her
exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the
first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory. We
declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to
the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.
The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not
extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the
destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have
asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the
past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that
fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we
hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we
pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its
freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations. The Irish
Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman
and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights
and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue
the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing
all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences
carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from
the majority in the past. Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for
the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole
people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the
Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and
military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people. We place the cause of
the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we
invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonor
it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation
must, by its valor and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to
sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august
destiny to which it is called.

Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:

THOMAS J. CLARKE, THOMAS MacDONAGH, SEAN Mac DIARMADA, EAMONN CEANNT

P. H. PEARSE, JOSEPH PLUNKETT, JAMES CONNOLLY

The sixteen leaders of the uprising who were executed
in Kilmainham Gaol Dublin's Prison in May 1916

Kilmainham Gaol.
Dublin, February 2013

But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell

rang mournfully and clear

For those who died that Eastertide in

the springing of the year

And the world did gaze, in deep amaze,

at those fearless men, but few

Who bore the fight that freedom’s light

might shine through the foggy dew...

"The Foggy Dew", Canon Charles O'Neill

Kilmainham Gaol.Dublin, February 2013

In memory of the Irishmen and women who took up the arms in Dublin on the Easter Monday of 1916 (24th April 1916). Defying the might of an Empire, they stood up with true rebellious spirit, for an Independent Ireland...

Κυριακή, 10 Απριλίου 2016

"We ended up in a situation that we have to eat the most unclean animals. We are terribly suffering from hunger and thirst. We have been attacked from various diseases. 1740 of our brothers have already died. The enemy has sent more than 100.000 bombs against us, destroying our parapets and houses. We are feeling the cold so intense as we are completely out of wood. Despite our hardships the courage and the high moral of our guard is remarkable. In a few days from now all these brave men they will be only shadows of angels, martyrs, in front the throne of God, of the indifference of the Christian world as this is its case too. In the name of all our gallant men i announce, under the sight of God, that we swear to defend inch by inch the ground of Mesolonghi. Rather to be buried under the city ruins than to respond to any offer for surrender. We are living our final moments. History will give us right and the people after us will mourn for our disaster. The thought that the blood of a Swissman, offspring of William Tell, will be mixed with the blood of the heroes of Greece makes me really proud."

The night of 10th to 11th April 1826, dawned Palm Sunday, the remaining inhabitants and defenders of Mesolonghi, having no other choice left after 12 months under siege, they will try to break through the enemy lines of the Ottoman - Egyptian army, seeking their own path to Freedom...

The Exodus of Mesolonghi, one of the brightest moments of the Greek War of Independence, will stay in history as a fine example of heroism, valor and self - sacrifice.

Nikos Beloyannis, born in 1915 in Amaliada Peloponnese, was one of the most iconic figures of the Greek communist, resistance and revolutionary movement during the 20th century. Beloyannis became a global symbol after his execution, as an example of militant attitude and communist integrity.

Beloyannis was send back to Greece in June 1950 with the mission to reorganize the illegal underground organisations of the Greek Communist Party (KKE). Few months later, in December 1950, secret police managed to arrest Beloyannis. Two trials will follow. The first in October 1951 and the second in February 1952. Their outcome was the conviction of Beloyannis and 28 of his comrades. Six of them, with him among them they will be sentenced to death (only four will be executed) by the permanent Athens court-marshal, when tens of others will be sentenced to life imprisonment. The main accusation of the first trial, this of the violation of the law N.509/1947 according to which KKE consider as a criminal organisation and is declared illegal, was replaced by the charge of spying in favor of Soviet Union. Earlier in November 1951 wireless apparatuses were discovered in the Athens neighborhoods of Faliro and Kallithea, providing the military judges with an opportunity to use the espionage law against the accused.

Nikos Beloyannis during his first trial.
October 1951

During the trials but as well as after convictions were published, a huge international solidarity movement was developed and tried to prevent the execution and save Beloyannis and his comrades. Hundreds of thousands anonymous and famous people (hundreds MPs from France and UK, Charles de Gaulle, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nâzım Hikmet, Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin among others) from all over the world set pressure on the Greek government in order to cancel the execution. Despite the efforts, it was Sunday, 04:12 am, on the 30th of March 1952, Nikos Beloyannis, Nikos Kaloumenos, Dimitris Mpatsis and Elias Argiriadis were finally executed by the Greek state.

Nikos Beloyannis became a hero because he did his duty 'til his very end. He knew what fate was waiting him, he knew that he could save his life if he wanted to, but he didn't take that risk, because the only thing concerned him was to keep his consciousness and dignity until the end, in front of the firing squad...

Nikos Beloyannis' party booklet as it is saved today

Nikos Beloyannis as political commissar
during the Greek Civil War.

The last
letter of Nikos Beloyannis.

Ancient mythology narrates us that Olympian
gods were set on trial in front of ancient Athens' tribunals when they had to. This
was told in order to dictate the high value and meaning the ancient tribunals should
have had. If these gods existed nowadays and mend to be political opponents of
the postwar Greek governments then for sure they would have to run far away in
order to get saved from the expediency courts which act like factories by issuing
standardized convictions against the democratic citizens.

Within five years, 1945 – 1950, about 50000
convictions were issued and more than 5000 people sentenced to death! From them
almost 2000 were executed with many of them being women, old women or even 17
years old girls! Courts of this kind could show tolerance to some common crook,
thief or murderer but for their ideological opponents they show no mercy. Here
is an example. Two teachers, Sotirs S and Nikolaos K were sentenced to death.
They managed though to achieve revision of their trial by a common criminal
court and they were found innocent! There are many other cases like this!

A question is born: What cause such brutality?
Greece is a poor country, because the ruling classes up to our day depended
mainly to the parasitic external loans and not to the development of our
natural resources. This fact had as result the living standard of the working people to not been improved at all. And as far as the economical backwardness was
back to back with political backwardness, it was quite easy for the oligarchy
to govern and exploit the people without facing any kind of social turbulence.
More or less the same thing happened in England just before the appearance of Chartists
movement. (…)

(…) when i and Ioannidou were under strict detention
since 1950! Even this fact didn’t prevent them to sentence us to death because
we were not denied our ideology when only one word would be enough, as Galileo
did, in order to avoid trial!

Because the real reason of our conviction is our
ideology. The charge of spying is (invalid?) and slanderous and is not based on any real evidence. My life itself contradicts them. Since the age of 17, still
a student, i believed in the socialist ideals and since then, for more than 20
years, my life is dedicated to the struggle of democratization, independence and
prosperity of my country. For my ideology they expelled me from the University
of Athens, exiled me and sent me to jail during the Metaxas dictatorship. I
could easily follow a career path and a comfort life; I chose instead a life full of
hardships, prosecutions, pain and tears. Italian and German occupiers sent me
to concentration camps. I manage to escape and i fought them with all my
strength, often cooperating with the English delegations. After liberation i continued
the political struggle. At the same period i was editor in the political
economical magazine “Eleutheros Morias”. The break of 1945 gave me the
opportunity to continue my studies and finish two books “The economic development
of Greece” and “The history of contemporary Greek Literature” which still
remain unpublished, as new prosecutions didn’t allow it.

Since the end of 1940s i am once again under
persecution. My whole family perished. And now the same fate awaits me. My case is
not unique. There are countless more. This one side civil war against the left
wing citizens will bring Greece in front of new calamities. If the right wing
side had good will, the salvation of our misfortune land and its people it
could be really simple, because it’s included to the following words:
Democracy, general amnesty, peace and measures for the improvement of peoples
living conditions. But which government has the will to apply such a program?
That’s the question as the great English writer says.

Nikos Beloyannis

12.3.1952

PS. These
lines are written in rough from the death row cell which i am isolated, waiting
my death. Maybe when you are reading these lines i will not be alive. I wish our
blood to contribute to pacification of our suffering land. Unfortunately the
result will be the opposite. And this because the right-wing side never wanted the
pacification and reconciliation of our people.
Anyway whatever happens i will remember until my last moments with infinite
gratitude the gentle efforts of all the people who tried and still try to
save us from the executioner.